This eBook was produced by David Schwan <davidsch@earthlink.net>.
One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered
By E. J. Wickson
Professor of Horticulture, University of California; Editor of Pacific
Rural Press; Author of "California Fruits and How to Grow Them" and
"California Vegetables in Garden and Field," etc.
Foreword
This brochure is not a systematic treatise in catechetical form intendedto cover what the writer holds to be most important to know aboutCalifornia agricultural practices. It is simply a classified arrangementof a thousand or more questions which have been actually asked, and towhich answers have been undertaken through the columns of the PacificRural Press, a weekly journal of agriculture published in San Francisco.Whatever value is claimed for the work is based upon the assumption thatinformation, which about seven hundred people have actually asked for,would be also interesting and helpful to thousands of other people. Ifyou do not find in this compilation what you desire to know, submit yourquestion to the Pacific Rural Press, San Francisco, in the columns ofwhich answers to agricultural questions are weekly set forth at the rateof five hundred or more each year.
This publication is therefore intended to answer a thousand questionsfor you and to encourage you to ask a thousand more.
E. J. Wickson.
Contents
Depth of Soil for Fruit.
Would four feet of good loose soil be enough for lemons?
Four feet of good soil, providing the underlying strata are not chargedwith alkali, would give you a good growth of lemon trees if moisture wasregularly present in about the right quantity, neither too much nor toolittle, and the temperature conditions were favorable to the success ofthis tree, which will not stand as much frost as the orange.
Temperatures for Citrus Fruits.
What is the lowest temperature at which grapefruit and lemons willsucceed?
The grapefruit tree is about as hardy as the orange; the lemon is muchmore tender. The fruit of citrus trees will be injured by temperature atthe ordinary freezing point if continued for some little time, and thetree itself is likely to be injured by a temperature of 25 or 27° ifcontinued for a few hours. The matter of duration of a low temperatureis perhaps quite as important as the degree which is actually reached bythe thermometer. The condition of the tree as to being dormant or activealso affects injury by freezing temperatures. Under certain conditionsan orange tree may survive a temperature of 15° Fahrenheit.
Roots for Fruit Trees.
I wish to bud from certain trees that nurseries probably do not carry,as they came from a seedling. Is there more than one variety ofmyrobalan used, and if so, is one as good as another? If I take sproutsthat come up where the roots have been cut, will they make good trees?